We May Be Very Similar
by Out of the Orange
Summary: Kaworu's thoughts towards Rei II, Rei III, Shinji, and himself. Based on the manga, with particular focus on his encounter with Rei in chapter 71.
1. thoughts

**a/n****:** Again, this is based on the manga version of _Evangelion_. The manga and anime versions of Kaworu are significantly different, so if you haven't read it, I promise none of this will make any sense whatsoever. (Even then it might be really obscure.)

* * *

my thoughts

_We're the same._

your thoughts

_We are not the same. We might be very similar…but we are not the same._

your feelings

_Ikari. I want to be with Ikari. I want to be one with you._

_My heart, it_

_It trembles, gasps, bleeds._

my feelings

_Tepid and sticky, it constricts my chest_

_this yearning to touch you. kiss you. this fear of losing you._

yours. mine. ours—

(_how would it feel if you came to love me?)_


	2. differences

_We may be very similar…but we are not the same._

* * *

Oh, but I didn't understand what you meant back then. That was why I had no answer for you. As a matter of fact, I was angry – angry! I, who, like you today, had not yet been touched by emotion.

But of course, with that in mind, I had no way of being angry with you. Rather, I was irritated, and this was possibly augmented by the fact that perhaps I was a little envious of you. That's no large thing. Even base animals are capable of envy.

And then we must go yet one step lower – for was it really envy I felt? What had I to be envious of? We had both of us arrived at the forms of children of men. And yet, what was it you had that I lacked – or rather, what was it that I lacked, that I was not yet even aware of lacking?

I only knew that you had something, some vital strength (weakness?), that I did not have.

* * *

"You have the same feel as me. Why?"

He smiled at her, ruminating for a moment before deigning to respond. "Certainly the matter comprising us is the same. And we have both taken on forms of the children of man in order to live in this world." He paused for a moment before continuing with amiable deliberation.

"Our difference lies in whom we have met, and how we have lived thus far."


	3. experiences

But we were the same

But we were the same. At one point, at least, we _were_ the same.

_Something is coming, flowing into me._

_What? What is this?_

before i knew it i was trembling struggling gasping bleeding and now at the end i realize ikari ikari—

_i want to be one with you_

* * *

It was right at the end. For me, that was the beginning.

And so now the question is not, _who were you?_ Rather, it is, _who are you?_ I know who I am, and she was and is no longer. Now I am what she was. He is to me what he was to her, and is not to you.

So who are you?


	4. touches

He was talking to me a few days ago

"I wonder if she's dead. Ayanami." He was crying.

I looked at him.

"I don't want to lose you," he went on.

I pretended he was talking to me. I knew he wasn't, but I pretended anyway. Just for a moment. At any rate, I _had_ been her for one moment, and now I am her always.

I suppose that's why it was so funny to me, what he said to me later.

"It's best that I stay with you. Because you're the only one who isn't sad for Ayanami."

"Oh, so even though you hate me, you feel comfortable around me? What a funny thing to say."

He hates me. He hates me. I know that. It really wasn't amusing at all, but I laughed anyway, because it _was_ funny.

* * *

I think she touched him. Maybe a few times. I don't remember. I was only her for a few seconds. Yes, and then always after that, but only in my heart and not in my head. So it's not like I can remember everything.

That night I kissed him, but it wasn't really kissing. It was more like breathing together, which I think is more intimate in a way. So he could keep on breathing. And didn't she do it for the same reason? So he could keep on breathing. So that he would stay alive.

All the same (it _is_ the same), I think he hates me. I pretend I don't care, but I do. I guess she was right that we were not the same, because I have never had that poker face of hers. At least I can smile until he goes away.

_How does it feel when someone comes to care for someone else? Wanting to touch them. To kiss them. To be afraid of losing them. _

_The First's thoughts and feelings flowed into me. Is that love? _

_I wonder how it would feel if you came to love me. _


	5. expressions

He's a bit of a selfish guy, though. Did you know that? No, you don't. But for you – he left as soon as he heard you were alive.

You.

And who are you?

"What about me? You won't call me your "friend" – even though I'm all you've got left now."

The First he knew died trying to save him.

_Her thoughts and feelings flowed into me. Is that love? What do you think about me? _

But he only asked me to let him go.

I let him go.

_My heart. It trembles. It gasps. It bleeds._

* * *

After that, the old men told me that I had a sour look on my face. What did my face matter anyway, I asked them. You would know about that, wouldn't you? What would you have done?

You wouldn't have to have said anything at all. I am not you. So what if I've a sour look on my face.

* * *

"I am a child of fate. From the very beginning, I was born for this destiny.

"But I have my own will. And by that will, I can choose for myself to defy that destiny. I'll die either way. So the only real freedom left for me is in the choice of the form my death will take. So, with your own hands, I want you to kill me.

"That way, you'll never be able to forget me, even if you try. Right? Just like the other people you've lost so far."

"Probably. Without a doubt."


	6. but we are not the same

_We might not have anything but the EVA program right now. But as long as we stay alive, someday, we'll be glad that we survived._

_It might not be until far in the future, but until then, let's keep on living._

* * *

"Don't ever do anything that reckless again!"

"What do you mean? You saved me—"

* * *

My first time in my own room.

I reach up, brushing my fingertips against those of my reflection in the mirror. My own face seems like a stranger to me now. But the room whispers to my heart with vestiges of familiarity. Perhaps it remembers me, though I do not.

I am here again, but it must be my first time. And yet I keep asking myself:

Why am I still alive? For what purpose?

For whom?

There is a pair of broken sunglasses lying on the desk. I go over and press them into my hands. Before I realize it, drops are falling upon the broken lenses.

I am crying. I can't stop.

* * *

I gaze steadily at the boy, rubbing my hand where he had just grabbed me. After a long moment, I speak. "You have the same feel as me," I note wonderingly. "Why?"

He replies: "Certainly the matter comprising us is the same. And we have both taken on forms of the children of man in order to live in this world. Our difference lies in whom we have met, and how we have lived thus far.

"'We may be very similar, but we are not the same'. That's what you told me before," he says. "Don't you remember?"

He is smiling.

That boy Ikari kills him a few days later.

* * *

"You even self-destructed EVA-00. You don't remember?"

"No. I don't remember."

* * *

We are not the same. We may be very similar…but we are not the same.


End file.
